POTTERS GUILD OF NJ SHOW

While Ellen Mulligan is gallivanting around London, England (we miss you Ellen, but have a spot of tea for us!) - Itsuko Ishiguro, Sandy Pancrazi and Cynthia Shevelew will be selling their work at the POTTERS GUILD OF NJ show - see below for details!

  

Potters’ Guild Hosts Annual Pottery Festival & Sale  

Where:       Community Presbyterian Church

                   1459 Deer Path

                   Mountainside, NJ 07902

When:         April 26th and 27th, 2014

                   Saturday 11 AM to 5 PM                          

                   Sunday Noon to 5 PM

Highlights: This increasingly popular event draws hundreds of customers from throughout New Jersey and the tri state area.  Available for sale will be a fabulous selection of vases, wall pieces, pitchers, teapots, platters, casseroles, raku and pit-fired vessels in varying colors and styles, and one-of-a-kind sculptures and decorative objects of art. The show is the perfect place to find a unique item or gift.

Admission:   Free and Credit cards now accepted!

 

Directions:   Route 22 to New Providence Rd, Mountainside.

                        If going east on 22, cross over 22 at New Providence.

                        If going west on 22, go right at New Providence Rd.

                        Follow the double yellow lines up the hill to Deer Path.

                        Go straight ahead to the church on your left. 

PETER'S VALLEY CRAFT FAIR

WE WILL BE AT THE PETER'S VALLEY CRAFT FAIR AGAIN THIS YEAR!

Saturday, September 28th (10am - 6pm) &  Sunday, September 29th (10am - 5pm)

Sussex County Fairgrounds,

37 Plains Road, Augusta, NJ 07851

Directions to Fairgrounds

Look for us in Building 5 Booth 109

Download the mobile guidebook here

Dining in Denver

delecTABLE: The Fine Art of Dining    

Presented by The Art Students League of Denver

April 6 – 27, 2012

Online April 1^st at www.ASLD.org

Bamboo Plate

It’s official; I must now squeeze another file into my already overflowing drawer of show rejection letters.  This time I get to add a letter into my “Acceptances” file!

I am quite honored to have my work please the discerning eye of the esteemed juror, Nick Joerling.  I share that honor with 22 other potters, including a potter whose work I have long admired, Monica Ripley. 

Berry Bowl

So my Berry Bowl and Bamboo Plate are off to find a new home in Colorado. Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea…

                                                                                                    

Blizzard of Activity

Potters in panic mode!

Well, I just returned from dropping of a small number of pots for a wonderful craft sale that we are lucky enough to be able to participate in at the Belskie Museum.

The four of us - Cynthia, Itsuko, Sandy and myself - are also members of Underground Potters, a group of potters formed while studying at The Art School at Old Church, in Demarest, NJ. We have been showing together every year since 2003. We have really grown together through the years, and it's a great pleasure to be in such a wonderful group.

So from November 13 thru December 11 our work will be for sale in the Belskie holiday craft show.

But wait, that's not all! The four of us are also members of the Potters Guild of NJ, and our Guild's semi-annual show in Mountainside, NJ takes place this weekend. I think that Cynthia, Itsuko and myself will be there, but I'm not sure Sandy can make this one.

And yet another wonderful show! Sandy is at the Leonia Library, with her brother Ron Pancrazi, for the month of November.

Oh, yes, I will also be participating in a craft sale at the Unitarian Church in Ridgewood, NJ on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 19. This sale is for the benefit of a Youth Camp in Patterson, NJ.

Wait, wait, one more - Itsuko will be at a sale in Westfield, NJ on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 19.

And finally, you have been reading the words of Miss July, in a 2012 Potters Council calendar, available here.

Almost Famous...

On the morning my new issue of Studio Potter Magazine arrived I was in the process of recovering from a bout of food poisoning or an evil virus (it didn’t matter which – the results were the same). My husband brought it upstairs to where I lay like a rag doll with no stuffing, as if to offer a cure for what ailed me. I spent the next 20 minutes fighting nausea, chills and a pounding headache as I sobbed over a submission by Vince Montague, “Every Pot is a Test Tile.” Granted I was feeling sort of vulnerable at the time, but his story about the loss of his wife and how the very thing she loved (being a potter) helped him with his grief was so touchingly poignant. Kudos to Editor Mary Barringer for this issue; if you don’t subscribe to Studio Potter Magazine now is the time!

http://www.studiopotter.org/pubs/?view=current

This issue is special to me for many reasons. It is entitled “The Uses of Failure,” a subject that I am not unfamiliar with and I imagine others feel the same way. I too submitted a story for this issue and, much to my amazement, was accepted. At the time I sat down to write it I remember thinking “Failure; now there’s something I can sink my teeth into!” Failure and I have been dancing in the dark since I was knee high to a dragonfly. I knew it was time to shed some light on this tedious Tango. I’ve heard it said that a writer’s voice is usually aimed at one person (an old friend or perhaps a ninth grade English Comp. teacher); well this piece was written for my younger self. Maybe she’s out there somewhere, ready to turn her back on something she’s unsure of when her Studio Potter arrives. As she flips through the pages it dawns on her “Hell, I can be good at failure too!”

This is one of the first pots I made after 25 years of not touching clay

Oh, and guess what else arrived the same morning as my Studio Potter Magazine? My rejection letter from the Strictly Functional Pottery National… I’m so proud of me!

My Haystack Adventure

photo by Nancy Merrifield

So, a dream for a long time, for me, was participating in a workshop at Haystack School in Deer Isle, Maine. I had heard for years about the beauty of the location, the wonderful, inspiring workshops, and the food!

I always hesitated, feeling I wasn't quite ready for it - honestly, I'm just not that serious a person, but I am passionate about ceramics. So I have been waiting, watching the workshop offerings, looking for a good fit. And, lo and behold, the year 2011 offered a perfect fit for me - 'When Animals Go Tactile' with Bernadette Curran, an artist I have admired for many years. Her work is so fresh and alive, it seemed like a perfect tonic for a potter who wanted to recharge and refresh. Lucky me, I applied, a place was reserved, and I just finished with two very inspiring weeks there.

Bernadette demonstrated some wonderful techniques - more, really, than I could keep up with. So it was a relief to get the assignment to design a 'setting'. I designed a breakfast set, for one, maybe two...salt&pepper on a tray with a jam pot, a plate, a cereal bowl with an egg cup for a knob...you get the idea - me going a little too far, but having a great time! I tried to bring the animal imagery into my setting, with the tray having a fence in the middle, the salt&pepper as chicken &egg,




the butter dish as a barn, which was a direct copy from Bernadette's demo (yellow birds courtesy of Nancy Merrifield!)...I made sure everything was labeled 'Haystack' so I will keep it as my workshop 'notes'.



                                                                                

I would recommend that anyone looking for a two-week immersion of studio time check out the current offerings for Haystack, and I think that next summer's offerings will be announced in January.

photo by Marsiella Catanoso

I'm totally a ceramics person, but I have to say that a visit to the fiber studio was magical! Each participant had built their own little kingdom, and produced some awesome work. And a highlight of the visits to other studios was the blacksmith's shop performance of 'inflating' their pieces.

And one more note - I think that the people who make the long trip up to the coast of Maine, to spend two weeks immersed in their personal passion, whether they are teachers, studio artists, or someone with a very serious 9-5 profession, are a charmed group. Everyone seemed totally delighted to be hanging out with each other. Everyone had an interesting story. Many were able to find someone with a very specialized expertise that could help them through a tricky technical problem. And the geographical diversity of the participants was amazing! It was all I thought it was going to be, plus more. I'm very glad I stepped outside my comfort zone to attend.

our wonderful group of potters!       photo from Terri Alexandra 

Cups and Saucers

So, I grew up in a pretty traditional Irish-American household. Lots of tea drinking.

Usually from some chipped cups in the cupboard, and in a low bowl used as a saucer, that I would pour the tea into to cool off faster. Yes, I grew out of that.

My Mom collected fancy cup and saucer sets. As we grew up we were allowed to use them for dessert-time on family holidays. Each one had a very unique personality – we even named some of them. Everyone had their favorite.

So one of the fun items I tried this year was my own version of collectible cups and saucers. They were a lot of fun to make, and as I sat down to decorate them I hit a roadblock – so hard! It now makes total sense that factories had specialized ‘decorators’ who never made the forms. It is a totally separate mindset.

bisqued cups and saucers, ready to decorate!

I have always been a fan of the Bloomsbury Group. The lush, decorative interiors are just the sort of world I’d love to crawl into. I remember reading about Quentin Bell, Vanessa Bell’s son, on growing up in that household. He trained as a potter, and had a studio set up at Charleston, their country house:

‘For many years after the war, when Quentin was married and living far from Charleston in the north of England, he would return with his family, and work in the pottery during the holidays. Duncan and Vanessa loved to find a pristine set of cups and saucers newly fired and ready to be painted – rather to Quentin’s chagrin, for he was looking forward to painting them himself!’

from ‘CHARLESTON A Bloomsbury House and Garden’

by Quentin Bell & Virginia Nicholson

I wish Vanessa and Duncan could visit, and steal away my bisqued cups & saucers!

Here are my attempts – Day of the Dead, with a Mexican influence, and Kitchen wallpaper (self-explanatory).

Inside Day of Dead cup, and the saucer

Five Teapots in Five Days

I threw the teapot bodies, lids and spouts last Friday, trimed on Sunday, pulled handles and assembled spouts on Monday (finished attaching handles 10:00PM), carved and decorated Tuesday and Wednesday... repaired cracks on handle and spout joints today (with a big thank you to paper clay).

The lesson here: Teapots, like a good cup of tea, cannot be rushed! I wrapped the plastic a little tighter around the spouts and handles, leaving the bottom open - hope that does the trick. My goal is to load a bisque kiln this weekend and glaze fire the following weekend. We shall see ;-)